


to let go of myself and feel alive

by dramaturgicallycorrect



Series: all my favorite conversations [13]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bakery, Alternate Universe - World War II, M/M, home au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-16
Updated: 2016-11-16
Packaged: 2018-08-29 06:47:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8479348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dramaturgicallycorrect/pseuds/dramaturgicallycorrect
Summary: Harry can hear jeeps rolling in the distance and curses the day they picked this town out of a thousand others just like it for a temporary base until the forces move through France. It’s just his luck, really, but he figures no one will think twice of a baker. France has no conscription, he’s got burns up his back that tell a story, and Philomene’s always telling him he’d blow away if the wind was strong enough, light as he is.


  A baker has no business with war.

 [Or Harry is a baker in a small town in France and Liam is the soldier he shouldn't talk to. But he does.]





	

**Author's Note:**

> This fic talks at a high level about war, trauma, injuries, and severe burns. Nothing graphic enough to be labeled graphic, but it's there. Please take care of yourself and feel free to ask any questions you might need. There are some obvious liberties I took with some historical events for narrative purposes, please suspend your disbelief as well as you can.
> 
> Thanks to Amy, my historian extraordinaire, whose guidance I wouldn't have written this without. Thanks to Sabrina, my partner in bakery crime, for organizing this fic fest with me, my eternal love and gratitude. Thanks to the rest of my ladies for their support. Thanks to the other writers in the I Used to Be a Baker FicFest, I love you all dearly for participating.

It’s hotter than it has any right to be with autumn settling in around him, but Harry keeps his coat on and his hat pulled low and tries his best to negotiate with the wall. The wall drives a hard bargain. Harry’s back twinges when he kneels for the cement, but he hasn’t got a stool to spare, messy as he is.

Harry wonders at what point this is going to become a lost cause and it’s not the first time he’s thought that. Not even the second time.

He wasn’t raised a defeatist. He wasn’t raised without honor. Failure eats at him, gnaws like a dog with a bone, until he’s stripped of his marrow. Until he feels hollow.

These are just walls, though. The worst that’ll come of this failure is a disappointed purse of Philomene’s lips and maybe a smack to his bum with a rolling pin. He shakes negativity from his mind and dips his spatula into the cement mix.

The dust of war has hardly settled around them. The war isn’t even done; it’s just moved on from here. They’ve been _liberated_ \-- that’s what the soldiers have said. They’re free now and there’s no need to worry. Nobody believes a word of it.

The war isn’t over and yet Philomene has been moaning about the facade for the better part of the year, how the holes have become an eyesore. Never mind that every building in town has been littered with them, as though this were the architecture style _a la mode._

Their bakery’s not seen the worst of it. The butcher just a few streets down had half its front blown away. These small holes are superficial, gives the facade something of a sponge-like quality. He covers them anyway, best as he can, before he’ll reapply the lavender paint, try to recreate the vines her husband had painted forty years ago when they opened the shop.

It’s the thought that that’s what pains her the most -- that they’ve marred one of the few pieces of her husband left -- it’s that thought that keeps Harry going. Even if it is a bit of a lost cause.

He tries his hardest not to be sloppy about it, to only apply the filler where it belongs, but gravity works against him and he spends more time trying to stop the cement from sliding down the wall than he does successfully filling the holes.

Harry thinks maybe there’ll be a day there was no evidence at all of the war, that the Allies will win and slowly manage to turn back time like nothing ever changed. He’d like to think they’ll all have learned their lesson, that they’ll all lay down their guns having finally realized what they’re capable of. He thinks maybe one day, then he thinks probably not.

“Your mixture is too wet.”

Harry startles, flicking some of it on his shoes, and looks over. It’s a British soldier talking to him, with a clean uniform and no officer insignia. Harry ducks his head, a hand raising to self-consciously tug at his hat. His hair hasn’t quite grown back out as much as he’d like, not enough to throw suspicion, not enough to completely cover the burn. Harry sneaks another look at him.

The private carries with him a rifle, lazily resting in his hands, as though the war could return here at any moment, like they haven’t been liberated for over a year. The rifle’s not cocked. Harry knows he’s not the enemy here, but he clocks it nonetheless.

Harry’s eyes flick around the street, from the florist to the east and the line of flats to the west. No one sees them, not yet.

Harry keeps his face schooled, a gentle sort of hesitation on his face that might indicate he doesn’t know English.

“Sorry, I guess you probably don’t understand that?” the private responds, rubbing at his neck with a sheepish sort of smile on his face. Harry’s confused for a moment -- his type tend to have the sheepishness beaten out of them, put under so much pressure they harden like diamonds and there’s nothing soft left in them.

“ _Bonjour_ ,” he says, shaping the word crudely like he’s trying but he’s not quite got it.

“ _Bonjour_ ,” Harry parrots back. The soldier looks pleased.

“ _Je m’appelle_ Liam,” he says slowly, before adding, somewhat self-consciously, “Well, ehm, Private Payne, I guess. _Je m’appelle_ Private Payne.”

“ _D’accord_ ,” Harry answers, doesn’t offer his own name.

“Are you open?” Payne makes a movement with his hands like he’s opening a door. “ _Pour manger_? Open? Food?”

Harry’s about to tell him no -- they’re closed on Sundays, Philomene’s the one holdout in town who’s not given up her faith just yet, and for some reason she truly believes God wants her to rest her old bones just once a week. God also wants Harry to fix the wall.

He should tell Payne no because if he’s caught feeding a foreigner, there’ll be hell to pay. But they could use whatever spare change he’s got, and Harry’s certain he has a roll or two from late yesterday he could pawn off as fresh.

He can hear jeeps rolling in the distance and curses the day they picked this town out of a thousand others just like it for a temporary base until the forces move through France. It’s just his luck, really, but he figures no one will think twice of a baker. France has no conscription, he’s got burns up his back that tell a story, and Philomene’s always telling him he’d blow away if the wind was strong enough, light as he is.

A baker has no business with war.

A baker has no business with any of it but bread and treats and the people who wish to savor them. Harry remembers the bakery from home, how they’d known everyone’s name, how they’d ask after husbands and children, how they’d celebrate.

Harry used to love to make wedding cakes. Here no one is marrying, no one has cause to celebrate. The men fight for their nation and the women fight to survive. There is no call for luxury. There is no time for idle gossip.

“ _Oui_ ,” Harry answers, throwing a glance down at the mixture, figuring it’ll probably find some way to solidify while he’s in there, and he’ll have to beg for some more from Mr. Arnau tomorrow.

Payne slings the rifle around casually, the strap hooking over his shoulder when Harry opens the door for him with, “ _S'il vous plaît._ ”

He gestures for Payne to take a seat at one of the few tables they’ve got inside. They don’t necessarily encourage lounging. Philomene insists everyone has better places to go, but Harry has gently encouraged Philomene to consider not chasing everyone out the door the second they come in.

Payne looks at the table and chair, then back at Harry, then at his rifle, which he lays gently against the wall behind him. Harry scoots around the counter so Payne can’t tell Harry watches him.

He doesn’t have a helmet on, his face is open, vulnerable, but Harry’s certain that’s only on the surface. He’s got wide, brown eyes that sweep over the bakery with curiosity instead of scrutiny, like he’s not sizing up advantages and weaknesses, but just taking it in.

Harry wonders what the hell kind of soldier he’s supposed to be.

“Nice place you’ve got here,” Payne says. “Um. _Trés bon_?”

Harry thanks him and slides into the back. He selects a round loaf with asiago baked into the top -- one of Harry’s favorites, if not decidedly un-French -- and heats it in the oven for a short while. It’ll melt the garlic butter Harry made nicely, and maybe make it seem a bit fresher.

Harry delivers the roll on a plate with a small butter knife that’s seen better days, at which Payne smiles and thanks him. There’s a warmth there that has Harry taking careful steps back, hovering near enough to be accessible, but not near enough to be intrusive.

Payne breaks off a nice chunk of it with his hands and slathers the butter on. The bite he takes is both a compliment to his trust in Harry’s food and far larger than Harry would have suggested he take.

“Oh,” Payne says, muffled through his full mouth, his eyes widening down at the chunk in his hand. Harry finds himself breathless in anticipation as Payne chews hard and swallows enough to add, “Oh, my _god_. Oh, god, that’s utterly marvelous.”

Harry’s cheeks are flushing, though he wishes they weren’t, and if Payne looked over at him, Harry might not be able to get away with pointing his red face back to the look on Payne’s face and not the reverent way his lips curl around the compliments. He doesn’t understand English, after all.

Eventually he does look up at Harry, who chances a small smile at him. “ _Trés bon_?” Harry tries, knowing Payne is already familiar with those words.

“Oh, yes, very much, very _trés bon_ , like, I’d honestly forgotten what it was like to eat _real food_ ,” Payne says before he stops himself quickly and throws a distressed look over at Harry. “I’m so sorry, I’m sure you have no idea what I’m talking about, which I reckon is a bit rude. But, uh.” Liam points at the bread and then makes a very serious thumbs up, accompanied by a fervent head nod.

“ _Merci,_ ” Harry replies, somewhat charmed in spite of himself.

“I should honestly just save some of this for later, but I just -- I really don’t want to,” Payne says, almost as if to himself. He looks pained at the decision, his eyebrows furrowing enough to tell Harry exactly how difficult the struggle is.

He takes another large bite, so Harry supposes that’s that decision made rather quickly. He eats the whole thing right there like it’s something of a compliment to Harry. Harry supposes it is, he’s properly charmed by his ravenousness, which Harry decides is down to the quality of the bread and not the quality of the food he’s been served in His Majesty’s service.

When Payne’s done, he leans back in his chair, his eyes closed, the picture of sated, and Harry wonders what he’s seeing. His mum’s kitchen, picnics in a park, the overall sensation of home.

Harry watches him, unabashedly, doesn’t turn away in shame when Payne’s eyes open slowly to find his. The moment hangs between them, a balloon that threatens to pop once there’s too much air, until Harry ducks his head and Payne rises from the table.

He spills far too many coins onto the table. Harry slides what he doesn’t need back to him, but Payne holds his hands up and says, “Keep them. _Trés bon_ , you deserve them.”

Harry follows him through the door, scrambling to think of a reason to do so along the way, until he remembers the cement outside. “ _Au revoir_ , Private Payne.”

“Um. Liam, if you would. Just, uh. _Je m’appelle_ Liam.”

Harry hasn’t forgotten his name. He sticks his hand out and says, “Harry.”

“Harry,” Liam repeats with a grin, gripping his hand firmly. “ _Merci,_ Harry.”

\--

The world looks pale, as though it’s lost its color in the wake of destruction, the entire town dusted a drab grey. Maybe it always looked like this, maybe the sun never shone on this town and the people were never vibrant. Imagining the town in some other way, as warm as the one Harry grew up in, seems like a disservice to the truth.

Harry thinks he’s lonely. It hasn’t mattered, not in years, not when he only has people to miss who could never come home. He doesn’t gather people to him because he doesn’t know how to keep them anymore.

The soldiers in town are a stark reminder that permanence hasn’t existed here for years. That buildings older than Harry can be torn down in a moment, that lives can be lost as quick as a breath, that the war marches on to leave them all behind once they’ve fulfilled their purpose. The soldiers will leave eventually, to infest a new town, or maybe to be welcomed as heroes. They aren’t worth any good here.

Mostly the soldiers seem to wait, like they’re on the precipice and they are waiting to be told to jump. Some try to help, try to rebuild the walls or shovel up the rubble, but they are scorned for their efforts.

Mostly they sit in cafes and leer at women, stumble drunkenly through the streets at late hours, earn their reputation as rats.

Liam isn’t like this, Harry notes, because once he’s met Liam, he sees him often. He turns quickly away from any soldier, as any person in this town does, but unlike his neighbors, when it’s Liam, he watches.

He watches Liam chase down a woman on a Wednesday afternoon whose sack had torn open, and was leaving a trail of apples in her wake. Liam picks up each of them dutifully, sprints after her, shouting broken French until she works up the courage to stop and turn around for him.

She doesn’t thank him and she brushes off his offer to carry them home for her, as she has been struggling to carry the sack half her size. She rebuffs him timidly, her head ducked as though she were afraid of the consequences. Liam apologizes and steps back from her, reading her fear with confusion, but respecting it nonetheless.

Harry thinks maybe if didn’t know the warmth of Liam’s grin, if he hadn’t heard the sincerity lacing his compliments, he too might have turned Liam away.

He’s a light, Liam is, illuminating the small corner he stands in, until color impossibly bleeds into the grey.

Harry doesn’t understand what could possibly have made him think that.

\--

He works on the wall the following Sunday as well, hoping his new mixture is less wet. It’s hotter than the previous Sunday and Harry feels as though he were toiling in an inner circle of hell and not northern France. His back twinges every time he goes for the cement, manageable for the first hour until he considers giving up altogether.

That’s when Liam arrives, when Harry has his hands braced against the wall, his back curved as he breathes through the pain. Harry straightens to greet him, mindful of his breathing so he doesn’t invite questions.

Liam looks as soft as he did the last time he showed up at the bakery, which could be breathtaking in and of itself if Harry allowed himself to think that way. He doesn’t have a rifle with him today, has his hands in his pockets like this were the kind of place for a leisurely stroll. Harry imagines it might have been, at one point, long before he arrived here, long before the Germans did. Back when Philomene used to make all number of treats instead of just bread to keep people fed.

“Harry, hello.”

“Liam, hello,” Harry repeats carefully, nearly hating the fraudulent way his native tongue leaves his mouth. It’s a fact of self-preservation, he reminds himself, reasons to not throw suspicion his way, to discourage questions that get at who he used to be.

“Hello, yes,” Liam says, delighted at the way Harry echoes him.

Harry waits for Liam to invite himself in like yesterday, so he has a reason to keep him around.  But he also hopes Liam will leave because he confuses Harry. He has no right to stir up things within Harry that has him rolling in doubt.

Harry knows what soldiers are and what soldiers do. He knows his own place in this world, and it is not making friends with the people who look to destroy it.

“Do you -- I was wondering if I could help you with the wall?” Liam points at the wall and says, “Um. _Aidez moi_?”

Harry isn’t stopped up by the fact that his conjugation is wrong, so much as it is he wonders how Liam learned it. If he read about it or if he’s heard pleas, screaming, _help me help me_ , until he realized what they meant.

Harry thanks him, tells him yes, that he’s very kind to offer. He hands Liam the spatula and stands back, recognizing he’s only got the one set of tools and has rendered himself useless by letting Liam take over.

Liam strips to his undershirt before long, sweat staining under his arms and a long column down his back. Harry gets him a cup of water and brings himself a chair, figuring he’s in it for quite the long haul.

He wonders what a fellow soldier might say, or an officer, if they passed by and recognized him. He should be wary like his neighbors to see a British soldier, or any of the Allies really, pick up a tool to help them. He’s heard rumors of other towns receiving German aid to help rebuild, as though some nominal fee will make up for lives ruined. He wouldn’t have taken their money. He shouldn’t take Liam’s help, but he does. Liam shines a light on their wall, illuminating the grey-dusted vines.

They natter at each other comfortably, in basic terms, even manage a few jokes between the two of them, Harry pulling ridiculous faces and miming the most absurd things to accompany his French. He notes the way Liam’s eyes seem to squeeze shut when he laughs, as though his smile were too bright to let anything else shine.

It’s enough that Harry starts to feel guilty all over again -- they could understand each other just fine if Harry would simply drop the charade, if Harry could trust a stranger in a uniform.

It’s not that they forget how to be human, the soldiers, far from. It’s that they must turn it off. It’s that they must detach in order to survive -- that you living means someone else dying, if you’ve done your job right.

He looks at Liam, with a smile that overcomes his whole face, with his earnestness, with how easy it is to make him laugh even though he can only understand one out of every ten of Harry’s words. He looks at Liam and struggles to see that about him. He listens to Liam talk about why he enlisted -- what he hopes to do, who he hopes to save, how he hopes his one gun can be another step towards saving the world -- and he struggles to imagine Liam could abandon all of that.

Perhaps that’s what holds Harry’s attention through the afternoon, until Liam has patched and smoothed over every hole he can find. He mentions something about sanding over the bumps once the cement has dried, and for a moment Harry wonders if he will be back to finish the job himself.

He turns from Liam to open the bakery door, insisting on payment. Liam goes easily, the tips of his ears and cheeks pink with the sun or with amusement at the deep, sweeping bow Harry takes to distract himself from noting their color in greater detail.

For what it’s worth, Harry tells him he doesn’t have anything ready, he’ll have to make something. Through a series of gestures, he manages to coax Liam behind the counter to run a rag under the faucet to wipe his brow and to tend to a pot of tea as Harry bakes. Liam regards the oven with suspicion, or maybe reverence, Harry isn’t certain.

Harry swats at his hand with a whisk when Liam attempts to dip his finger into the batter, and Liam dances across the room with a laugh that heats Harry’s face as much as the warmth from the oven does.

“I heard you lot have a radio station,” Liam says, picking up the battered radio Harry’s never touched and fiddling with a few of the knobs. “Radio at camp is only for official purposes. But -- oh, here we are.” Through the crackling, they can hardly hear a light croon accompanied by a sweet brass. Liam looks pleased enough, his eyes fluttering shut. “I’ve missed music.”

The tea is done well before the cakes are, nearly too cooled to drink, but Harry doesn’t care. Liam doesn’t appear to either.

They stand leaned against the counters, saucers in one hand, tea cups in the other, like it’s another time and place. Harry knows if Philomene found out he’d wasted ingredients on him, on something so useless as tea cakes, there’d be hell to pay.

Harry goes quiet, wondering why it is he’s done it without a second thought. He doesn’t honestly remember sparing a first thought either, moving mechanically to produce for the two of them a little piece of home, a little piece of normalcy.

Harry stays quiet, not that it’s too much of a concern, because Liam talks and _talks_ , about anything and everything, and when he’s not talking, he’s trying to hum along to a French song he’s never heard before. Swaying his hips like maybe he’d dance if there were a lady to take a turn around the bakery with. Music looks good on him, and Harry wonders what it is he did before the war.

Harry learns enough about Liam to solidify the guilt in his stomach into a heavy rock. Liam is from Wolverhampton, hasn’t fired his gun yet, hasn’t been in the field yet, likes more sugar in his tea than tea.

Harry tells him about Holmes Chapel and his Spitfire, about learning to bake before he was tall enough to reach the top of the counter. Sharing things he hasn’t said in years because it’s safe here, in a language Liam doesn’t understand. So Liam doesn’t understand, so he doesn’t pity, so he doesn’t mourn.

He breathes easier talking to Liam.

Before long, Liam makes his excuses, suddenly flustered about how long he's been away from camp.

“How much?” Liam asks.

Harry shakes his head and tells him it’s free, holding up his hands like he won’t accept anything from him until Liam gets it.

“ _Merci_ ,” Liam says with a grin.

“ _Merci_ ,” Harry echoes softly. He wouldn't deny he had wanted to see that grin again.

\--

He thought it would get easier as he healed. He thought he would heal. He knows it takes time, that at some point he won’t feel phantom flames licking up his back as he attempts to sleep, that simply scrubbing the floor won’t leave him paralyzed in a crouch and wracked with pain.

It’s worse the day after sleepless nights, when he wakes sweating and tense far before the dawn, startling awake the memory of a flash of torchlight sweeping over his eyes, blinding him even though his eyes are closed.

He reads by lamplight those mornings, the same book over and over again. Once he finishes it, he flips back to the first page and starts again. He hopes for the best of Edmond Dantes, far from his home like Harry is. Louis had given it to him, thought he was being quite clever, and hadn’t understood when Harry had broken down in tears.

Reading doesn’t do anything to distract from the pain, really, but the story surrounds him as best it can, like a soft, careworn blanket. He flips through _The Count of Monte Cristo_ and reminds himself his situation could be worse. That’s always supposed to make it better, the fact that it always could be worse.

Louis shows a day later than Harry would have preferred him to, but he lives by Louis’ schedule as payment for his time and medication. Louis asks if they're alone.

“Yes,” Harry says firmly, in English. It feels good on his tongue.

“Good,” Louis answers and follows him to the back, through the swinging door that holds their storage and Harry’s cot.

Louis is the only one who knows; Louis saved him, carried him to the town.

When he'd first seen Louis, after the blinding light of his torch settled, Harry had thought he was an angel. And then when Louis touched his back, he thought Louis was the devil incarnate. Louis has seen the worst of Harry, worked on him through the screaming and long after Harry’s voice left him.

Harry would have thought that softened Louis to him, the things they've been through together, but it's only served to harden him further.

“Off,” Louis demands, flapping a hand until Harry removes his hat and peels his shirt off.

Harry was never a self-conscious boy, never had any reason to be. He's not self-conscious now, having shown his naked arse to half of the nurses in town. He feels exposed the moment the air hits his back, vulnerable in a way he’s never thought to be, never wanted to be.

He lies down onto his cot, the dip of the thin mattress behind him the only warning before Louis starts.

The jelly burns against his skin, tingling in waves that start like a dead arm until it seizes him and he goes breathless. Louis’ relentless, unlike his fairer counterparts, who treat with some measure of empathy. But Harry’s heard the cat calling Louis gets from the soldiers, almost as bad as what the ladies get. The boy nurse, couldn't go be a doctor because the war had blown apart the medical school.

Louis is swift with his patients so his mouth doesn’t walk him into trouble, clinical so his heart doesn’t walk him there either.

They're all doing the best they can, given the circumstances, ripped away from the lives they might have had, or at least wanted to have.

Usually Louis works in silence, but today he speaks, something almost teasing in his voice. “There is a soldier at the camp, he speaks of you. Harry the baker. A new friend?”

Harry says nothing, feels his cheeks heating before they have any right to.

“You like this boy, Payne.” It's not a question.

“He’s fine,” Harry says shortly. He does seem fine, patient, still capable of wonder.

Louis hums.

“He’s not -- like the others.” Harry knows better, he knows it's Liam's inexperience that keeps him kind, and he isn't surprised at all when Louis disagrees.

“He will be,” Louis says, and for a moment, he almost sounds sorry with it. “They are all the same. They destroy, in the name of peace, until you forget what peace could be.” He presses hard enough, carelessly through his anger, that Harry must bite down on a barely stifled grunt. Louis apologizes hastily in French.

Harry understands. This town’s been bombed by Britain as much as it has by the Germans. The ones who get caught in the middle, whose homes unwittingly become a battlefield, they're helpless to it.

Louis prepares to work the jelly delicately along the thin burn that traces up the back of his head, lacing his fingers through his hair.

“You need to cut,” Louis says brusquely. He paints on the jelly quickly and removes his hands.

Harry thinks maybe if he had a choice, he’d let his hair grow. Simply because no one has reason to tell him to cut it. It’d grow long enough he could remove his hat, breathe easier without raising any questions.

Harry walks him to the door when he can stand.

Louis’ jaw stiffens as he looks at Harry, as though he were uncertain what to say. “Be careful, Harry, _prudent_.”

“ _Je vais, merci_ ,” Harry says.

He locks the door behind Louis and scoots a chair in front of it, though it’s been a while since anyone has been desperate enough to break in. He’ll rise before the sun to let Philomene in.  

\--

Utterly crude French greets Harry shortly after the bell chimes to indicate someone’s presence. The French is delivered slowly and carefully, the reverence with which he says it at complete odds to the actual contents of the phrase.

Philomene gasps from behind Harry and Harry startles at the sink and looks over to where Liam leans against his counter, takes in Liam’s proud face as he says, “One of the nurses taught me that, at the hospital, uh, _infirmière apprendre_.”

Philomene calls him an English pig, tells him he should be ashamed of himself. Liam hesitates, looking between the two of them, confused. Philomene explodes again, through half a tirade over public decency before Harry rests his hands on her shoulders, soothingly telling her he’ll take care of it until she agrees to disappear into the back.

Harry snorts and walks to the counter to join him. “ _Infirmière,_ eh _? Qui_? Louis?”

“Yes, yes, Louis,” Liam says, nodding almost violently, his head looking like it’s going to wobble off if he goes much longer. “Louis says it means you have good food.” He repeats the phrase and makes an eating gesture with his hands.

Harry purses his lips to keep from laughing, reaching out to steady Liam’s hands. It most certainly indicates Liam likes to eat something, but food isn’t it. Louis’ just like that, his French is as unforgiving as his patience, and he’s tricked more than his fair share of British and American soldiers since Harry’s been here.

Liam watches Harry’s hand trail along his fingers until Harry drops them like they’ll burn him.

Harry offers to teach him the correct version, repeats the phrase slowly until Liam’s repeating it back as well as he can manage.

“ _Trés bon,”_ Harry says, sliding him a small roll for a reward.

Liam’s head ducks to grin down at the roll, turning it over and over in his hands. “I like -- I like to listen to you talk. I don’t really understand a word of it, of course, but it’s smooth. Like. _Chocolat_. _Vous parlez… chocolat._ ”

Harry can’t help the laugh caught up in his throat.

Liam’s cheeks pink. “I know it’s silly, I just wanted -- I wanted you to know.”

Harry reaches another brave hand out and rests it gently over Liam’s and thanks him.

The bell chimes again and Harry straightens immediately, sliding his hand back swiftly. He can't be seen this close to a soldier, he can’t be seen with the grin he knows he can’t bury when Liam comes around. But it's not someone he knows. It's another soldier, rifle in hand, surveying the bakery critically.

“Horan, hey! Horan, this is Harry,” Liam says, as though Horan should be familiar with the name.

Harry’s stomach sinks, recalling what Louis had said just a few days ago. He’s been telling everyone about the bakery. Harry’s been on alert since the British forces came to town, stepping more carefully than he has in a while, and the very last thing he needs is for all of them to look his way.

“All right, Harry?” Horan says, reaching his hand over for a handshake. He’s Irish, which means he enlisted, he wasn’t taken. Harry shakes his hand warily, watching Horan as closely as Horan seems to watch him.

Harry asks what he can get Horan, and he responds, “What’s good?”

“Everything,” Liam says with an earnestness that clenches Harry’s stomach. “Everything, _trés bon_ , right, Harry?”

The door opens behind them, the bell tinkling a warning before his neighbor Marianne takes a step in. She pauses, her face draining at the sight of the two of them before she backtracks out of the store. She’s not even there long enough for Liam and Horan to have turned around to look, but Harry sees it, knows what it will mean. It’s already begun.

“ _Oui_ ,” Harry answers shortly.

“Hmm, what can I get for a tuppence?” Horan digs a coin from his pocket and flips it in his hand. He grins at Harry.

Harry eyes the coin warily and says he would be happy to take payment in Francs, should Horan have any.

“French money, mate,” Liam says helpfully, looking at Harry as though they were sharing a joke. Harry doesn’t laugh.

Harry gets him a couple of croissants in the end, when Horan says he trusts Harry’s judgment. Harry wraps them in paper instead of plating them and takes his Franc tight lipped. He hopes the message is heard politely but clearly -- they’re not to eat here.

Liam’s face falls as Horan accepts the wrapped croissants. Harry can't tell if he's more embarrassed or more upset, and he shouldn’t care. It shouldn’t sicken him as it does. But this is a threat -- Liam has always been a threat, and Harry saw it in Marianne’s face.

Horan looks between the two of them, his brow furrowing as he no doubt attempts to reconcile whatever generous compliments Liam has undeservingly laid upon him and the bakery. He has weighed and appears to find Harry wanting.

“Go on, Payne,” Horan says to Liam before he throws a stilted, “ _C’est un plaisir_ ,” at Harry.

“ _Au revoir_ , Harry,” Liam mumbles, stepping away slowly like he’s giving Harry enough time to say something or to stop him. Harry says nothing, and they go. It doesn’t feel any better once they’re gone, the pressure in Harry’s chest remains firm and unrelenting.  

He watches them through the window, a small moment he’s certain he isn’t meant to witness. Niall rests a hand on Liam’s chest, the words he’s saying look soothing. Harry turns away before Liam catches him staring.

\--

Liam has this habit of popping up when and where he shouldn’t, catching Harry in compromising positions that forces him to give away far more than he wants to. One night it’s a glimpse of his back, the scarring that look like lashes he’s earned on a post.

Harry twists, one of his hands jelly-slicked and failing to reach his back. His back grows taut as he reaches farther, his fingers barely connecting where they need to.

His eyes water, blood rushes in his ears, and he misses the bell’s warning that he wouldn't expect after hours. All he knows is the pain of it, the frustration that mounts when he can't find relief.

“Shit bloody -- _shit_ ,” Harry shouts, his voice cracking desperately. He thinks of giving in and risking a journey to the hospital for Louis’ help, but he stops for another reason entirely.

“Harry?” Liam pokes his head through the swinging door from the front. He looks stricken, which Harry suspects is fair enough if you walk into a place and are immediately greeted by loud obscenities.

Harry drops his shirt and tosses the tube of jelly on the cot, even though he knows he's been seen. He's been heard, which is worse.

Liam shuffles in further, the door swinging after him. “Are you all right?”

Harry nods, regarding him carefully.

Liam stills. “You speak English?” Harry can genuinely see Liam connecting the dots in his mind, all the little pieces clicking into place. He braces for impact when Liam says, “You _are_ English?”

“Yes,” Harry admits slowly. He expects Liam to rage then, to regard him with something other than a curious frown, but he doesn’t.

“And you let me walk around and make a fool of myself trying to talk French to you?”

“Yes.”

Liam thinks about it for a few heart-stopping moments before he decides, “Well. I suppose that’s fair.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to lie. We got, um, so far along, I didn’t know how to tell you.” Harry tugs at the hem of his shirt, watching his fingers grip at the fabric because he’s too cowardly to look at Liam’s face. “I didn’t expect you to keep coming back. You’re always doing things I don’t expect.”

“Oh,” Liam says, lowly. “I can. Go? I can go.”

“I don't want you to,” Harry admits, despite himself. It would always be easier if Liam left, as Harry can’t ever seem to ask him to go.

“Okay.” Liam chances a smile for the first time, but it lacks the confidence that usually warms a spot in Harry’s chest, it lacks the brilliance that makes Harry want to see it every day. Liam’s eyes flick down to the tube and back at Harry. “Do you -- do you need help?”

He does, he absolutely does, tries to force a _yes_ through his lips, desperate as he is. But he can tell that it’s not just desperation that has him wanting Liam’s assistance. It’s trust.

Harry nods slowly, turning his back to Liam and closing his eyes.

“Christ, Harry,” he says as he draws Harry’s shirt up before Harry can pull it off first. “How the hell -- ” He breathes out long and hard enough that Harry can feel the air dusting over his back.

Harry nearly jerks away out of his reach, almost lets his pride get the better of him. He peels off his hat instead, follows it with his shirt, and listens for the startled inhale of Liam’s breath as he takes in all of it. He hands him the tube and climbs onto his cot so he doesn’t see the pity he knows paints Liam’s face.

Liam’s hands are the gentlest that have ever touched him, before and after the burn, he thinks. Liam snatches them away at Harry’s first pained inhale, and Harry can tell there’s an apology already on his lips without even having to look at him. His nurses have never been in the habit of regular apologies, not when they know they’re doing what they must do and Harry is going to sit in pain anyway.

“It’s fine,” Harry assures him. He’s had worse.

“You need a saline bath.”

“Baths are a luxury.”

“We can get you one back at -- ”

“No.”

Liam replaces his hands without arguing further, gently tracing around Harry’s shoulder blade. Harry closes his eyes and relaxes as well as he can, wishing like hell the circumstances could be different, that someone could lay their hands on him for reasons other than medical.

After a while, Liam asks, “Can I -- do you mind if I ask a question?”

“Okay,” Harry says quietly.

“How long have you been here?”

“Few years.” It’s accurate enough.

“A few years?” Liam says, sounding like he’s shocked enough that he’s nearly laughing. “What was so bad about England that had you fleeing to bloody Nazi-occupied France?”

Harry opens his eyes quickly, so the unbidden images of devastation don’t flash before his eyes. “There’s nothing for me there.”

Liam gently trails a finger up Harry’s scalp and it feels like it’s shaking. “So you pretend to be French? I don’t understand.”

“You know how difficult it is to be British in this town.”

Liam had told him Harry was the nicest person he'd met in France. That he was lucky to get a simple hello, let alone service from anyone else in town. It's not that any of them have love for the Germans, they're just tired. Harry’s tired too.

Harry always feels drained, his limbs limp in the aftermath of such tension and stress. He usually lays and waits until he can move, and Louis usually waits with him, silently, appraising. Certainly not out of kindness, but out of obligation.

He thinks Liam waits because he doesn't know what else to do. Harry picks himself off the cot for Liam, swings his legs over the edge, his back hunched over and drying. Liam kneels before him still, the empty tube of jelly in his slick hands, looking as though he were going to ask forgiveness.

“Are you cross with me?” Liam asks, as though cued by Harry’s thought.

Harry frowns. “No.”

“It seemed -- the other day, with Horan, it seemed as though -- perhaps -- I did something wrong?”

Harry’s fingers twitch and he tamps down on the urge to reach for Liam. “You can't bring your friend back here,” he says, gentle so it doesn’t sound like a criticism, “the people in this town, they'll ostracize us.”

Liam rises from the floor, his eyes tracing down Harry’s chest before they flick up to the empty wall above Harry’s head. “I didn't -- I didn't know.”

“I know.”

“I don’t have to come, if it’s going to get you in trouble.”

“I want you to.”

Liam nods and doesn't press any further, for which Harry’s grateful. He wouldn't want to explain to Liam why he needs him around, when months ago, Liam meant nothing. He wouldn't know how to explain it, in any case, and to attempt to do so would risk embarrassment.

Harry holds his hands up and Liam grips them firmly to aid in pulling him up, smearing a trace of leftover jelly. When Harry sways, his knees buckling at the burst of pain that always comes, Liam steadies him with swift reflexes, one hand on his hip, the other still locked with one of Harry’s hands.

“I've got you,” Liam whispers, remaining a solid pillar of strength against Harry’s bare chest until Harry disentangles himself gently with a thankful smile.

“Would you like something to eat?” Harry asks. “ _Pour manger_?”

“That sort of joke isn't funny yet,” Liam answers, his eyebrows furrowing for a moment like he's upset. His lips twist quickly into a smile as though the whole thing was a charade he couldn't bear to hold more than a few seconds. “Perhaps try it again tomorrow?”

Harry turns away from him to grin instinctively at the thought of Liam coming two days in a row. “I will.”

\--

Harry leaves the door unlocked for him. He keeps the chair away. He waits. They have a custom that suits them both. Liam tends to what he needs to in the camp during the day -- Harry doesn't ask and Liam doesn't divulge. Harry serves his customers, sweeps when Philomene tells him to, goes through the motions of closing up shop.

Harry keeps a few candles burning and keeps the door unlocked, and Liam comes well after the sun has set. Harry spends his whole day in anticipation for the evenings Liam comes back to him. They’re inconsistent, depending on how often Liam can sneak away from the camp, and Harry is grateful for each of them.

He sits on his cot and thumbs through his well-worn _Count of Monte Cristo_ , filling his time with words distracting enough to pull his thoughts away from Liam. He doesn't like the quiet anyhow, not when the quiet replays to him all the noises of the past. The sputtering of planes above them, slamming doors that sound like rifle shots, warning sirens.

The bell above the door tinkles. Harry grins and sets his book on his cot.

He passes through the swinging door into the bakery proper and finds Liam at the radio, like he often is. Liam switches on the radio and winces at the amount of static. He twists the dial over and over until the lightest hum of music finds them. “You need a gramophone.”

“I haven’t any records.” Harry uncovers the baguette he’d hidden away earlier in the day and begins to slice into it.

“We could get you some, from back home,” Liam says idly, as though the word _home_ didn’t echo in Harry’s ear like a foreign word he couldn’t quite comprehend. “George Formby, you know, lighten the mood.”

“Ah, is that all it takes?”

Liam gratefully takes a huge of bread and begins to gnaw on it, natters on with his mouth full like what he's got to say isn't worth waiting for a swallow. “Perhaps if we all maintained a strict regimen of up-tempo British music, we wouldn't have gone to war.”

“Revolutionary. We shall send a telegram to Churchill in the morning.”

Harry wishes that was all that were to it, as simple as that. They'd leave him and his village in peace to rebuild and Liam -- Liam would go home, safe, his limbs and his innocence intact. Harry thinks there used to be a time when he could take a joke to heart instead of bending it into something sad and real. He was a little more fun then.

The radio cuts out, static echoing across the room. Liam makes a sad noise and they let the static fill the space between them.

“Love this song,” Harry says.

“Yeah?”

“Mm. Excellent melody.”

Liam shrugs innocently. “Why don’t you sing along?”

“Oh, certainly,” Harry says and groans out his best impression of the static, soulfully, until Liam begins to laugh hard enough he can’t stand straight anymore.

Harry breaks soon enough, laughing after him, trailing off when Liam straightens and moves for him.

His hands brace Harry’s hips, swaying him gently. Harry moves easily, suddenly fluid at his touch, and watches him for any hint of a plan, an explanation. Liam just moves in closer and closer, until they’re swaying together, until Harry’s hands find Liam’s shoulders of their own accord.

Liam hums quietly. The melody has traces of familiarity, like a song you try to recognize from another room.

He dips Harry spontaneously, strong arms braced around his shoulder and his waist. The world shifts sideways suddenly, and for a moment, Harry feels as though he's flying again. His breath leaves his chest for a reason it hasn't in a long while, and Liam straightens him as quickly as he's dipped him.

“Have I hurt you?” Liam asks, sounding quite like he’s in pain himself at the thought.

Harry shakes his head. “No, I was -- surprised.”

“I’m very sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Harry says, sliding his hands back around Liam’s neck. He doesn’t honestly know what he’s playing at, but he knows how it feels. Comfortable, relaxed. Intimate. Exhilarating. They’ve danced themselves into a bubble where this kind of thing is perfectly natural, where they can sway easily cheek to cheek.

“My mum made me take these lessons,” Liam says quietly, “with the wretched Mrs. Chastain next door. Every lad should know how to spin his girl around a dance floor, she'd say.”

Harry hums.

“Mrs. Chastain told me I had two left feet and that my date would need cement shoes to protect herself.”

Harry scoffs in Liam’s defense. “We’re doing just fine.”

“Yes, we are. That will show Mrs. Chastain, won't it?” Liam pulls away, his hand trailing along Harry’s arm until it catches Harry’s hand. He gives Harry a spin and lets him go, bowing deeply. Harry bows back at him, too stiff to be natural.

Harry’s still breathing unsteadily with the dance, so he turns for the sink to wash up, drawing water to wash a knife. He breathes carefully, in and out, not deep enough to put a hitch in his back or draw Liam’s attention. Even when Liam doesn’t dip him, he feels the same breathless exhilaration he’d felt flying.

“Do you know,” Liam starts carefully, “I feel as though I don't know a thing about you.”

Harry pauses, only momentarily, before he pumps more water into the basin. “What would you like to know?”

“Everything.”

“That will take a long time.” Harry is too aware of their expiration date, and perhaps Liam isn't.

When Harry looks back, Liam looks cheekier than he has any right to be. “Then you best get started.”

“I don’t know what to say.”

Liam hums, carefully considering his choices with serious, narrowed eyes. “What’s your last name? It’s only fair, as you know mine.”

Harry nearly answers what he should answer -- Dantes, Harold Dantes, he’d told Louis, who had laughed in his face. He’s never had too great a sense of decorum, Louis, laughing in the face of a man who could have been on his deathbed. But Harry supposes it must have been easy to see right through him.

Instead, he says, “Styles,” and watches for any recognition on Liam’s face, relieved when none comes. He gives Liam another. “I've never been taught how to dance.”

“Well, Harry, you are marvelous at it.”

Harry grins. It’s easy to give them to Liam, small truths. “I’m from a village called Holmes Chapel.”

“I’ve not heard of it.”

“Few have.” Harry shrugs. There’s not much of it left to have heard of.

“How’d you learn French?”

“My sister -- she had a French tutor, got something close to fluent. She’d spent a whole year only speaking to me in French because she knew I couldn’t understand her. She thought it was quite the joke until one day she’d caught me crying because -- ” Harry breaks off with a sardonic laugh. He’s not to admit he cries, not even as a child. That’s not an acceptable behavior, not for a young man, not for a soldier.

“She was being mean,” Liam guesses.

“I missed her, actually,” Harry says. “Not that we’d had these illuminating conversations when I was eight years old, but. We had talked. So she started teaching me French herself, every day we’d pick through a chapter of _The Count of Monte Cristo_. I’d take hours and hours to get through a single chapter, but we did it. It was ours.”

“She sounds like an excellent sister. After a while, that is.”

“She was,” Harry says, and then it stops becoming easy in just a moment.

\--

Liam comes on a Sunday afternoon to break his heart. He sits at a table, spinning a cold cup of tea around and around as Harry talks about nothing, nothing at all, something so inconsequential, he forgets what he’s said minutes after it’s passed through his mouth. It’s small talk, as though they had a whole world’s worth of time together to talk about the things that mattered.

He catches Liam grinning softly at him, realizes Liam hasn’t said anything since he’s gotten here, not that Harry has let him get a word in.

“I’m sorry, I haven’t come up for air in ages, have I,” Harry says with a laugh.

“I still -- it’s good to hear you speak,” Liam answers, warm and honest. “You’re a lot funnier in English.”

“My French jokes aren’t quite as polished.”

“They will be.”

Harry shakes his head, his cheeks pinking the way they do when he speaks the most ridiculous things to him and Liam answers with trademark earnestness.

“I hoped -- I really rather wanted to be here when they are.” The smile slowly slides from Liam’s face.

Harry’s heart suddenly feels as though it’s sinking. Warmth leaves his body, starting in his face and trickling down, until his whole body is left icy, rigid. He closes his eyes, as though that would be able to stop what Liam says next. It doesn’t.

“I’ve been assigned. It’s -- they’re sending me to Germany.”

“No,” Harry breathes. He rises from his seat, pacing a few steps and refusing to let it sink into his heart and mind. Liam is leaving and another part of Harry is being ripped away without his permission, without his control.

Liam rises after him, looking sorrier than he has any right to be. His hands slide into his pockets and he looks smaller than he ever has. “Would you see me off?”

“No,” Harry says, adds to it just before Liam’s face has the opportunity to crumble. “They’d arrest me for treason if they knew I was here.”

The moments before Liam realizes what that means are torturous, thick enough to choke them.

“You deserted?” Liam has the kindness to say it as though the thought hadn’t occurred to him before, as though he weren’t suspicious.

“I let them think I was dead.”

“I don’t -- understand.”

He hasn’t put it into words. Harry knows his own story, he relives it nearly every day, but there’s never been anyone to tell it to. No one who cared enough or no one who was safe enough to be trusted. But the boy in front of him, this soldier with the kind eyes and the unfired gun, he frowns at Harry as though he wants to understand, and Harry trusts him.  

“They shot me down. They might have found the plane, or what was left of it after the fire.”

“Harry,” Liam whispers, like a knee jerk reaction to the shock of it, but then he waits for the rest of it.

“I didn’t want to go back. If they put you in hell and you see a road out, you think real hard about taking it.” Harry smoothes a hand over the counter fingers tracing through the dusting of flour he can never seem to wipe away completely. “I used to be a baker. Before I was conscripted. I wasn’t -- meant for all that. I’m something of a coward, even now.”

“You’re not a coward,” Liam insists. “Harry, you were injured. They’d have sent you home a hero.”

Harry winces. “I’m not a hero. I made a mistake, I paid the price. They shot me down. There’s nothing heroic about that.”

He never wanted to be celebrated, not for the things he did. He never wanted to be reprimanded, not for the mistakes he made. He didn't want any part of it, he just wanted to wash his hands of the whole thing. To eject. He had become grey with the war. He’d had his life at the cost of taking others’, and that meant losing everything Harry had left.

“For all I knew, they would have wrapped me up and sent me back out, desperate as they are for pilots.” Desperate as they are for fodder, he doesn’t say.

He’d seen it with his own eyes, men who were broken and patched up and sent back into hell. If you lost a limb maybe, if you left something behind, if you gave part of yourself to the war, that was enough to make it home. But with all the skin off Harry’s back, he's still walking.

“I was angry. For a while. Their planes had come, they’d dropped bombs on everything I ever knew. I wouldn’t have -- I wouldn’t have fought if I hadn’t been conscripted, but then. I thought maybe an eye for an eye. I thought maybe I’d destroy everything that they had. I’d make orphans out of anyone who made an orphan of me.”

That was the worst of it, maybe, realizing what he could become. What they could have made him into. Something that didn't see people, but targets. Who could look at thousands of lives lost as collateral damage and not a tragedy. He's seen the beasts his brothers in arms had turned into. He’d seen a wickedness take them beyond the limits of war and how that wickedness had spread into town like this one. How the wickedness spread until Harry could no longer call them his allies.

“That’s a cruel way to live, Liam. It’s not me, I don’t -- I thought maybe I deserved it, getting shot down. It was only fair, punishment for the things I thought, the things I did. That maybe it was a relief that it was all going to be over.”

“You’re still here,” Liam says finally. “Harry, I thank God you’re still here.”

Harry sniffs and blinks enough times that he’s not in danger of crying, that he’s not surrendering himself to complete weakness. He admits quietly, “I don’t know if I should be.”

Liam moves for him, his hands out of his pockets and around Harry’s hips again, pressing forward until their chests meet in an echo of their dance. Harry doesn’t hug him back, but he wishes he could.

“You should come home,” Liam tells him.

“I can’t.”

“I could try to help you -- I’d talk to everyone for you, until someone agreed to send you home. You deserve as much and more.”

Harry closes his eyes and rests his face into the crook of Liam’s neck, inhaling the sharp scent of sweat and the powder they use to clean Liam’s uniform. It’s familiar to him now, but soon it won’t be. “There’s nothing for me there.”

“I would be,” Liam says softly.

Harry shifts back away from him, nearly startled with the admission. “You don’t mean that.”

He can’t entertain the thought, even for a moment, that he could come home to Liam. That the kitchen they’d meet in would be their own. That Harry wouldn’t have a cot but Liam’s bed. Even if this is what Liam means, it isn’t appropriate. It wouldn’t feel real. There’s no story, not in French or in English, where they have their happy ending.

“Harry,” he starts, trailing off. He lets his hand finish the sentiment; it slides gently to rest intimately at the side of Harry’s neck.

Harry covers Liam’s hand with his own, savors the heat of them together, before he slowly removes Liam’s hand. He clutches it between them tightly, desperately pressing his intention into Liam’s skin.

“Be safe,” Harry says unsteadily. He swiftly brings Liam’s hand to his lips to kiss it before dropping the hand as though it’s burned him. He takes a painful step back from Liam, but once he’s done one, he can do another. He steps back again and again until he can disappear to safety through the swinging doors back to his cot.

He doesn’t let out a single breath until he hears the tinkling of the bell over the door, then he lets go a ragged, heartbroken sob.

\--

Harry becomes seized by the idea once he’s had it, like a fever coursing through his body and its only remedy is to see Liam. To see Liam and tell him everything and -- Harry doesn’t know. He’d sat in bed and thought and thought -- if he had it to do all over again back home, what would have said differently. Who would he have told. Who could he have saved. He was powerless then, but he’s not powerless now. He could do something about it, he could use his cowardice in his favor. He could make a difference, even if it was just in Liam’s life.

He shouldn’t have said _nothing_. He should have begged and begged, he should have made Liam see reason. He’s been too paralyzed by inaction to act when he needs to most.

His singular mind has him stomping up the cobblestone roads, his coat pulled tight around him to battle the cold that had suddenly dropped in on the town. He thinks it is cruel of the season to finally arrive and reflect how Harry would feel in Liam’s absence. The town somehow seems to grow greyer as the wind blows steadily, reminding Harry what lies ahead for Liam if he leaves this place. How they’ll douse his light.

The British camp sits on the western edge of the town, joined with what’s left of their hospital. He will question whoever he must to get to Liam, even if it means giving himself away.

He’ll see Liam alive and well, even if he must hide him in the back room of his bakery until they’ve all left. It means cowardice and dishonesty and treason, but it also means safety. It means Liam goes unharmed, stays alive.

Harry slides into what looks like a makeshift barracks, finding a flurry of activity as men bustle around to prepare to deploy. His heart thunders with fear as more and more soldiers pass him and none of them are Liam. He can’t have left yet, there hasn’t been enough time.

A soldier grips Harry’s arm firmly and halts him. “You shouldn’t be here.”

“ _S'il vous plaît_ ,” Harry says, eyes casting around for anyone who could help him. He spies Horan carrying a box of ammunition from across the room and his chest floods with relief. “Horan? Horan!”

The look Horan gives Harry is scathing, but he approaches nonetheless and waves the other soldier off. “What are you doing here?”

“Do you know where Private Payne is? Liam?”

Horan’s face shifts into a frown. “I thought you were French.”

It’s not worth arguing or explaining, desperate as Harry is. “Please, I need to speak to him.”

Horan considers him for a moment before he sets the box down onto a table and nods back toward the door. Harry thinks for a moment Horan will lead him to Liam, but they stop outside the barracks, obvious they won’t go any further.

“I need to speak to him,” Harry repeats.

Horan crosses his arms. “I don’t know that that’s a good idea, mate. Whatever you said last night really did his head in.”

Harry doesn’t like that thought, that his realization that Harry was a coward or Harry’s abrupt goodbye had caused him such pain that it was written on his face or that he’d confided in someone. Harry doesn’t worry for a moment about his own safety. It doesn’t occur to him for a moment that Liam might have told someone his story and risked Harry’s life. Liam wouldn’t, not without permission.

“He can’t go, please, they’ll kill him.”

“He has his orders,” Horan says gruffly. “We all do.”

“Damn your orders and stay alive,” Harry shouts, loud enough that there are soldiers on the street who look over at them.

Horan remains infuriatingly calm, his voice low. “Payne is doing what he thinks is right, and you need to respect that. You need to respect him. Go on back to your _bakery_.” Horan slides back into the building, leaving Harry alone, shaking in the street.

He’d felt the same way after he’d refused to enlist, after every boy on his street had disappeared off with proud parents, ready to show old Hitler a thing or two. It wasn’t that Harry felt he was better than them, that he should be granted the right to stay in his bakery in safety. It was never that.

He hadn’t gone to war, so war had come to him. That old bakery is gone now, a pile of cement last he’d seen it. He’s gone and found a new bakery, one where war has already been and has no business to return to. Liam would be safe here, as Harry has been.

Someone grabs Harry’s elbow roughly and tugs at him until he’s turned clear around. Harry fears he’s being arrested, simply because he stands where he shouldn’t be, but it’s not an RMP. It’s Louis.

“ _Are you insane_?” Louis hisses at him as he marches Harry down the street. He says nothing else until they’ve reached the bakery, and there is nothing Harry particularly cares to say to him either way.

He pushes Harry through the bakery door, throwing a cursory glance around for Philomene, but she’s not in. That’s why Harry had slipped out.

“I have thought this before, that you are as stupid as the other rats.” Louis cuts off with a hiss when Harry opens his mouth to argue. He spills out a mountain of swears in rapid French, lacing them with insults about Harry’s potential, undiagnosed brain damage.

Harry takes his punishment in silence, drained by the end of it even though he doesn’t argue. He felt drained last night and through the morning, drained even as he approached the camp. Drained like all hope had been sapped out of him, as it has too many times before. He hadn’t even believed he’d succeed, but he did it anyway. Failure eats at him.

“You have a second chance, and you want to throw it away? Why?”

“I love him,” Harry finds himself saying, before he can think better of it. But once he lets it go, he doesn’t contradict it. It settles over him like a warm, comforting blanket to fight the chill. That must be what it is, nothing but love. He hasn’t felt something like that in so long -- fear and anger and exhilaration and righteousness and vengeance and hopelessness, but never something like love. It feels like a balm.

“No,” Louis snaps. “You know him two months. You do not love a soldier. A soldier only loves war.”

“No, not Liam. Liam -- he’s not like them.” He won’t hear Louis say, _he will be_ , not again. Anyone who says that doesn’t know Liam’s heart. “He wants to help, he’s not cruel. He sees the world in vibrant colors. He sees the best in me, even though I have no worth left. I love him for that.”

Louis purses his lips for a moment, looking as though he were on the edge of an explosion again. Instead, he simply says, “You are a fool.”

“Yes,” Harry agrees.

“Do not leave this place again. I save your life twice now, I will not do it a third time.” He places a hand on Harry’s shoulder and squeezes it before he leaves, one of the few, if not only, displays of empathy he has ever seen from Louis. In his own way.

Harry doesn’t leave. He stands alone, empty, resigned, in the middle of the bakery, for hours maybe, only shifting from his spot once Philomene returns from the market with a long list of supplies for Harry to gather. Nothing on his list brings him close to the camp.

\--

He leaves the door unlocked at night, but doesn’t expect to hear the bell tinkle. He sits on his cot and reads by lamp light and hears the phantom sounds of Liam’s arrival so many times that he doesn’t truly believe it when it genuinely happens, until Liam pushes through the swinging doors and comes to stand in front of him.

He’s uniformed but still breathtaking, and says, “They say the war’s almost over.”

Harry blinks at him several times, as though maybe he were a mirage. “If you’re lucky, you won’t have fought in it.”

Liam sits on the cot next to him, waits for Harry to set his book aside and scoot over next to him. “Louis sent me.”

“He’s a good friend.”

“Horan told me not to go.”

Harry nods. “He’s also a good friend.”

“I don’t have much time. Someone will notice I’m gone.”

There is too much to say, too much ground to cover that Harry doesn’t know what to start with, so he blurts out the most damning thing that comes to mind. “You could die.”

Liam nods as though he were expecting that argument, and he answers calmly. “So could you. Harry, if I’m not fighting for you, no one will. If I’m not risking everything, there’s no one to keep you safe. There’s no one stopping them.”

“I know,” Harry says. But it doesn’t have to be Liam, it doesn’t have to be _this one_ that Harry wants to keep. Selfishly, it could be anyone in the world trying to keep him safe. Anyone in the world risking poisoning their heart the way that Harry did.

Harry knows Liam’s heart, slides his hand over it, wishing he could feel it beat through Liam’s thick coat. This heart would belong to Harry if he had his way, and he’d guard it as best as he could, from the horror and heartbreak that lies ahead of Liam.

“You make me want to do impossible things,” Liam whispers, his own hand sliding to Harry’s neck. He looks in awe of it, though they’ve touched before, though they’ve been close enough to breathe the same air.

If he wants permission, Harry gives it to him. “So do them.”

Liam tastes like nothing he’s ever tasted before, though there truly couldn’t be any reason for that. The simple fact that he kisses Harry makes him taste sweeter than anything real. Liam is earnest in his affection as he is in all things, kissing too thoroughly to have ever thought this was impossible.

Harry nearly tells him, nearly lets the word slip from his lips. He doesn’t know if it would be a burden on Liam to know Harry loves him, something that weighs him too heavily to let him do what he must. He tries to say it a dozen different ways in the thick air between them.

Liam guesses his intentions incorrectly. “Don’t ask me to stay.”

“I won’t.”

He looks relieved, and that’s as close to permission to leave as Harry will give him. “But I would come home for you, if you’d let me.”

Harry wants that so much the thought burns within him, strong and sure. He hasn’t had a home, not in years, not since he’s had his family. But he would make this his home, if he could, far beyond the war, long after the buildings have been patched. He would keep this bakery and Liam would fix things. They would do impossible things.

“So come home,” Harry says, a challenge.

He kisses Harry again. “I will.”

Harry traces his hands over every inch of Liam, so there’s nothing he doesn’t know about him. So there’s a space on his body for Harry to remember every day he doesn’t seem Liam. So that when Liam comes back a man changed by war, there will always be parts of him that are familiar to Harry, no matter how small.

Liam leaves before Harry has finished with him, though he doubts he would ever finish, and Harry vows to wait for him.

\--

Harry waits.

Through the winter, the spring, the summer, until the autumn creeps in on him again, until the mural is complete, until _The Count of Monte Cristo_ is read a hundred times more, until dozens of letters are sent between them.

He waits for Liam to darken the bakery’s doorway until, finally, on a crisp October morning, he does.

\----

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you very much for reading! If you need me, I'm [here.](http://wickershire.tumblr.com)
> 
> Please read the other ficfest entries and let our excellent authors know you love them as much as I do!


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